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A great idea paid me a visit last Thursday. Wouldn't it be nice to let my chickens visit with the goats, as they please, but prevent the goats from raiding the smaller chicken quarters, I thought?

Armed with a shovel and an old gate I started on my mission... Several hours later that old gate hang in place of a section of the fence high enough for chickens to go under it, but too low for the goats to get through, or so I thought.

I must have forgotten the old Russian saying about a buck staring at a new gate, but that's exactly what he was doing. And not just staring, but apparently preparing his attack. Moments after I walked out of his way he was down on his knees trying to crawl under the gate. His head got through alright, but the big rear end was getting stuck. Obviously upset, he crawled back out only to attempt the same maneuver, only on his side! Again pulling himself out, he slowly walked away immersed in thought.

Imagine his (and my) surprise then, when he saw his somewhat smaller doe counterpart effortlessly slide right under the gate! I soon chased her back and lowered the gate a bit. Several attempts to squeeze under and around the gate later the goats gave up on it and the chickens braved up sufficiently to cross into their neighbors' newly opened territory.

The chickens had no problems finding their new way out to what they must surely see as an unlimited pasture. Finding their way back was another story, as the criss-cross of fences along the way created a maze, which their tiny chicken brains found to be impossible to navigate in the reverse. That made me briefly wonder how the homing pigeons with their even smaller brains could find their way back so easily and over such large distances.

By Monday, however, the chickens seemed to have finally learned their way around their newly expanded territory and by nightfall were all able to find their way back to the chicken side of the house without my assistance. I was relieved, but not nearly as much as the goats, as they saw the last of the squatters leave.

The obvious benefit of the added space for chickens to forage is the reduction in the amount of supplemental feed that they consume. In addition, as they forage, they upturn soil and mix plant matter with goat droppings, which helps in surface composting. On the downside, the chicken egg production has been more than halved. I hope that it resumes, as stress from the changes passes.